ash write

I had the good fortune of seeing Shane Meeker of Proctor and Gamble speak today. His topic was storytelling and how it makes or breaks designed objects and brands. Besides making lots of Star Wars and LOTR references (which were not lost on his Carnegie Mellon audience), he referred plenty to this book as a point of reference. Christopher Vogler basically adapts Campbell’s ‘hero’s journey’ and boils it down to twelve steps.

Because Mr. Meeker summed it all up so perfectly, I’ll just roughly outline the main questions and points that resonated with me:

• Is the hero’s quest/ordeals worth the treasure?
• The consumer is always the hero on the quest, and the brand is the mentor
• Tellers and listeners must be equally involved
• With technology being so advanced and accessible, story is the driving point home, not flying toasters
• Think of selling a lifestyle vs. selling a commodity
• Fulfill more than the promise (ie, log flume vs. splash mountain)
• Things made should feel like life, but not be life
• Think of getting to new “fields” rather than just filling the pasture

As my time here at CMU is wrapping up, I find myself pretty grateful that I had the opportunity to go here. From day one, the message and the story have always been emphasized, especially as a communication designer. There is this wonderful insistence that if you get to what you are trying to say, the rest just flows.

It is ever so easy to get distracted by technology, as Mr. Meeker says, and have the mechanics themselves define the solution. In other design areas, I can see this being very interesting (ie designing by the constraints of a material or new technology), but in communication design it is the axe.

See Mr. Meeker speak if you ever get the chance! Extremely inspiring.